


At Easter Let Your Clothes Be New...

by ssclassof56



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Easter, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 17:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10644921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssclassof56/pseuds/ssclassof56
Summary: Napoleon and Illya run afoul of an obscure Easter superstition.





	At Easter Let Your Clothes Be New...

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LiveJournal's MFU Writers Survival School for the Easter Egg Challenge 2017
> 
> Prompt: A weird, old superstition that says 'You must wear new clothes at Easter or the birds will crap on you'

_At Easter let your clothes be new, or else be sure you will it rue._

Illya sprawled face up in the grass and clutched at the damp clay with white-knuckled fingers. “Wilkes was right. Unlucky, unlucky.” His head turned fitfully from side to side. “Socks. Should have worn new socks.”

Napoleon tilted his face toward the communicator protruding from his shirt pocket. “Where’s my goddamn chopper?” he growled.

“Approximately five minutes from your location.” The velvety drawl was new and authoritative, and he took grim satisfaction in having been passed further up the chain of command.

“And, Mr. Solo,” the woman continued, “being Easter Sunday and all, I’m going to ask you to watch your language.”

The stab of embarrassment did not improve his mood. “I called for a medevac twenty minutes ago.”

“I beg to differ. You called in precisely eight minutes ago, and the helicopter was in the air three minutes after that.” Her words poured from the transceiver like warmed sorghum. “We may not keep the same frantic pace of life as you do in New York, but we know how to respond to an emergency.”

A picture formed in his mind of tawny hair and matching eyes, sparkling and thickly-lashed. With a guilty start, he reigned in his overactive libido and silently cursed Atlanta HQ. The first girl had been tepid water; this one was whiskey.

He withheld any hint of suave flirtatiousness, leaving his voice hard and cold. “Really? I was beginning to think I was on _What’s My Line?”_

“Bless your heart,” she said, and he sensed it was not a benediction. “Nurse Parker was attempting to evaluate Mr. Kuryakin’s condition.”

“Mr. Kuryakin’s condition is a gunshot wound to the side. It requires a doctor, not twenty questions.”

“Well now, since you brought my nurse to tears, you get yourself both.” Enflamed with indignation, her syrupy tones grew dark and scalding. “Tell me, are you maintaining pressure on the area?”

“Yes, Doctor, but dupioni silk makes a lousy compress.” He looked with fleeting regret to the jacket he pressed to Illya’s side and shifted his arms slightly to relieve the discomfort in his shoulders.

Illya swung his gaze over to him, his blue eyes dull, the pupils dilated. “Our clothes are spoiled. Wilkes said to watch for rooks, not thrushes.”

The doctor made a tsk-ing noise. “Still showing signs of confusion, I hear. How’s his color?”

“As gray as my suit.”

“Sweating?”

Napoleon frowned at the damp bangs which clung to Illya’s forehead. He felt a drop of perspiration trickle down his own cheek. “Yes, but so am I. It should be against the law to be this hot on Easter.”

“You should know dupioni wears warm. Next time try a tropical worsted.” A cupid’s bow mouth, curved in satisfaction, joined Napoleon’s mental picture. “Is Mr. Kuryakin irritable?”

Illya groaned something unintelligible in Russian. Napoleon snapped, “Obviously you’ve never met him.”

“Hmm. I’ll mark that one down for both of you.”

He sighed and softened his reply. “Sorry, Doc. You’ve not caught me on my best day.”

“Not unusual in this line of work. You Section II boys may revel in your aversion to Medical, but we all are playing for the same team.”

A familiar chuff-chuff-chuff reached his ears. “Give a cheer for dear old UNCLE.”

“And fight on, boys, fight on.”

A bubble-shaped canopy crested the hill, bringing relief and an unwelcome surge of déjà-vu. As it made for a landing in the field, he raised his voice against the increasing din. “Were you a cheerleader, Doc?”

“Me? A scrawny little thing with bands on her teeth. No, sir. Besides, I was too good at wrapping an ankle.”

Within seconds of the skids’ touching ground, two medics were jogging towards them with a stretcher. He bent closer to Illya. “Your whirly-bird is here.”

His partner moaned. “More birds? _Chyort.”_

Waving off their attempts to examine him, Napoleon backed away and let the medics focus on Illya. As his eyes kept a sharp watch on their ministrations, his hands took on a life of their own, smoothing his hair and straightening the wreckage of his suit.

“Are you flying back with us?” one medic asked as they lifted the stretcher.

Napoleon shook his head. The medic looked over the agent’s blood-stained dishevelment in dissatisfaction, then shrugged. With swift efficiency, they returned to the helicopter and loaded Illya into the aft compartment.

Napoleon watched them take off and disappear behind the hill. A desolate silence filled their wake. He half expected Colonel Morgan to bark his name. Bending over, he slapped futilely at the red earth marring his knees and let the feeling pass.

The communicator tumbled from his shirt pocket. He picked it up, along with his jacket. “Doc, are you still there?” For several seconds, the transceiver was silent. His lips twisted, and he sat heavily on a large rock, shoulders slumped.

“Mr. Solo, did my pilot just tell me you refused medical attention?”

Her voice, slow and sweet, flowed over his ragged nerves like a balm. “Call me Napoleon,” he insisted. “This Affair isn’t finished. I think my present condition will be to my advantage.”

“Well then, Napoleon, you go on back to saving the world, and we’ll handle saving Mr. Kuryakin.”

He stared at the dark stain on his jacket. “At least get him to stop raving about socks and birds,” he said gruffly.

“I’ve been thinking about his rather peculiar statements. They called to mind a boy in medical school whose people hailed from Yorkshire. He insisted we wear new clothes on Easter, otherwise the birds would foul on us.” She gave a short laugh. “At the time I suspected that folklore to be a convenient invention, one designed to excuse his gifts of inappropriately intimate apparel.”

Napoleon grinned in admiration of the technique and filed it away for future reference. “Illya’s lived in England. It sounds like the sort of legend he’d find fascinating.”

“And our feathered friends did spoil your clothes.”

“Standard operating procedure, unfortunately.”

“So I’ve heard. Your sartorial expenses are themselves the stuff of legend.”

“My reputation precedes me.”

“Indeed, it does. Every bit of it.”

He determined to know more of her bedside manner, on duty and off. “You know, next Sunday is Orthodox Easter. May I bring you something to keep the birds away? Perhaps a new…stethoscope?”

“Don’t you worry about me, Napoleon. However, I’ll be sure Mr. Kuryakin is wearing a brand new gown, just as a precaution.”

“I don’t think he’ll be there to appreciate the gesture.” At her intake of breath, he hastened to explain. “It’s not your medical skills I doubt, Doc, but your success at keeping him in a hospital bed. Illya is a notoriously terrible patient.”

“Aren’t you all? But I’ll have you know that the great General Thomas Jackson was a distant cousin of mine. If Mr. Kuryakin tries to get around me, he’s going to find himself running headfirst into a ‘Stonewall.’”

Napoleon stood and began to shrug into his jacket, shifting the communicator from hand to hand. “Is that your name? Jackson.”

“It sure is.”

“And your first name?”

She laughed. “For the time being, let’s stick with Doctor.”

Napoleon gave the field a final glance. “Then, _Doctor,_ as one teammate to another, I have a favor to ask. Put your best man in for this one.”

“Of course, Napoleon. I’ll go scrub up.”

“Thank you.” He tapped at the base of his communicator, reluctant to break connection with the velvety drawl.

She responded, “Until Sunday, then.” A sudden earnestness in her voice quickened his pulse. “And no rolling into my operating room before that, understand?”

“Yes, ma’am. Scout’s honor.”

“Fare thee well, Napoleon.”

As he closed the communicator, he pinned the lady’s words to his heart like a favor. Adorned with her blessing, he defied any Thrush to touch him.


End file.
